MPs on the environmental audit committee claim that the government hasn’t made the growth case for its plans to expand key UK airports.
Plans for UK airport expansion would mean hundreds of thousands of extra flights a year and put the government’s net zero goals in jeopardy, an influential committee of MPs has found.
A new report from the cross-party environmental audit committee said the government hadn’t shown that the negative climate impact of airport expansion would be outweighed by the economic growth created.
The government has approved a number of airport expansion schemes, most recently a third runway at London Heathrow and a second runway at Gatwick. The Department for Transport say that airport expansion plans will only go ahead “if it aligns with our legal obligations on climate change”.
Ministers are due to announce within weeks which of two rival proposals is preferred for the expansion of Heathrow. Meanwhile, the Gatwick decision could lead to an extra 100,000 flights per year. A third runway at Heathrow is reported to mean another 276,000 flights a year, while approval for an expansion of Luton airport is set to add tens of thousands more.
MPs on the environmental audit committee claim that the only way of meeting net zero would be if the government’s airport expansion plans were “accompanied by a serious strategic approach to increasing the pace of decarbonising aviation”. The chair of the committee, Toby Perkin, said that technological solutions, such as sustainable aviation fuel, were still not yet being used on a commercial scale.
While the committee’s report accepted that the expansion plans would probably provide some economic growth, how much was at best unclear and the government had yet to provide any clear evidence of this.
Speaking in parliament last week, the transport secretary Heidi Alexander said that Heathrow expansion “must align with our legal, environmental and climate commitments”.
However, Dr Alex Chapman, senior researcher at the New Economics Foundation who gave evidence to the environmental audit committee, said: “This is a damning assessment of this government’s airport expansion agenda. This government is unable to produce evidence that supports their central claim – that growing our airports will grow our economy. Had they done their research they would have found that demand for business air travel is collapsing and we’re flying ever more tourists to spend money outside the country than we are flying in.
“This government is damaging our climate and local communities and exchanging the welfare of the many for the indulgences of a tiny minority. The real beneficiaries of the airport expansion drive are an elite group of ultra-frequent flyers, as well as business owners mostly based overseas. The transport secretary should reject airport expansions and raise taxes on ultra-frequent flyers and the aviation industry.”
